


All I've Ever Learned From Love

by sinigmas (jaystrifes)



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Dark Themes - Proceed With Caution, Death-Countdown Timers, Human Bill Cipher, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kinda, M/M, Non-con warning does not apply to main pairings, Prostitution, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-05-16 23:28:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 11,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5845111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaystrifes/pseuds/sinigmas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Distanced from his loved ones and isolated in college, with a mark that leaves him no chance of ever finding his soulmate, Dipper doesn't know what to live for anymore. All Bill knows is that Dipper isn't supposed to die on those subway tracks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It’s cold in the subway tunnel. Freezing, in fact. Dipper can still feel it through his thick blue coat, so taking it off probably won’t make a difference. He hands it to a white-bearded man huddled against the wall; maybe he should’ve given all his belongings to the homeless, but it didn’t really occur to him until now.

They always say to watch out for stuff like that – giving things away, becoming preoccupied with death – but when you’re so isolated, who is there to watch out for you? He’s just an average college student with no friends. Another unexceptional name in the faceless crowd of people who live and die every day. His great-uncle passed away last summer.

He wonders who will miss him. His sister? They haven’t been in touch for months. He tried to leave her a voicemail, but the number was deactivated. His parents might be devastated, once they get back from their vacation to Cancún. His other great-uncle? Who knows if he’ll even remember who Dipper is. His soulmate, maybe? If he even has one. Everyone has a date written on their skin, marking the day they’re supposed to meet their soulmate, but it’s an imperfect system at best, and the only thing he has to show for it is the infinity symbol on his left arm. There’s no telling what it could mean.

There’s a train coming. Far down the tunnel, he can see the bright headlights, and he can hear the grind of steel that will carry him into merciful oblivion. He’s not afraid. At least, he doesn’t think he is. For the first time in nearly a year, he feels completely calm. There’s a sense of empowerment in taking control of the time and circumstances of your death.

Above the back of his head is a set of numbers, organized from years to days to hours to minutes to seconds. He’s never been able to see it, not even in the mirror, but for some reason he believes it’s there. Everybody is supposed to have one, but nobody can see theirs or each other’s, which makes it a bit pointless to have a countdown to the exact moment you die hanging above you. Of course, the hypothetical countdown isn’t accurate anyways, because it doesn’t account for accidents or premature causes, it just displays the ideal expected lifespan for an individual, which makes it twice as pointless. Scientists have deemed it a hoax since the 1900s.

But as much as Dipper has faith in science, he’d like to say he has faith in something else, something that would encourage him to lead a safe and healthy life until it was his time to die, even if he’s choosing to defy it now. The choice is what matters.

There’s barely anybody else at the station. This is the latest train of the evening, and it’s probably nearly empty, too. Morbidly, Dipper wonders how long it’ll take for them to scrape his body up off the tracks. Whatever’s left of it, anyways.

The air has gotten colder. Maybe that’s the wind from the fast-approaching train. It gets underneath his mop of brown hair and rumples it thoroughly; he decided to leave his trademark hat behind. If there’s anything he wants his family to remember him by, it’s how much he loved Gravity Falls. He breathes in deeply, but the scent here, diesel and pollution and big city, is so different from the clean forest air that he nearly gags. Dipper never paid it much attention until now, the last time he can take in any details, and the only details left are the shiny station tiles and the scruffy beard of that homeless man and the space between the rails of the track.

He moves forward, toeing the edge of the platform. He tries to think some nice last thoughts, but his mind is blank. The train is so close now.

He breathes again, he sways, and he sets one foot out into open air.

A hand catches the back of his shirt and yanks him away from the roaring noise that fills the subway tunnel, the hiss as the train stops in the station, and an anguished scream tears from his throat. Unbalanced, he falls on top of the man who is either his new mortal enemy or his savior, but not both. They crash to the concrete, but he’s cushioned by the other guy who landed beneath him. Dipper pushes away from him and paces until he can’t trust his legs to hold him up any longer. He twists his fingers in his own hair, bent over double, his chest heaving and nerves thrumming with sickness. He wants to scream again, but his throat is too tight for anything but a croak.

“Why?”

The man who held him back is sitting on the station floor, looking up at him with two amber eyes that look like they might be capable of stealing his soul. “Because I can see your timer. And today is definitely not the day you die.”


	2. Chapter 2

Looking at him, it’s hard to say whether Dipper’s rescuer is a guardian angel or a demon sent to torture him, and if either would be a suitable explanation for what he claims to know. Unbothered by Dipper’s stare, he gets up and dusts himself off before extending a hand to Dipper.

Dipper is tempted to take a huge step backwards and hope it’ll seem like an accident if he falls this time. But the train is gone, and so is the nerve he worked up to go through with this. Suddenly, dying is a terrifying prospect again: for now, more terrifying than living.

Any normal person would have given up on that handshake by now. The guy is still waiting patiently. Dipper wishes he could feel less thankful, but he’s shaking like a leaf in the wind now that the numbness of incentive to die is trickling out of him, and he owes this man his life. Nervously, he tries to steady himself enough grip the stranger’s hand.

“Man, we have to get you better at these,” the guy proclaims, tsk-ing at Dipper. He looks to be about the same age as him, if not younger. “Like this, see? You shake, not try to break my fingers. It’s common courtesy. Speaking of which, I was waiting to introduce myself. The name’s Bill.” Leaning closer – he smells like spearmint and cigarettes – he adds, “This is the part where you say it’s nice to meet me or something. I already know your name, Abel –”

“How the hell –?” Dipper’s really not in the best condition to ask big questions, even the crucial ones like _how does he know my real name_. His head hurts enough as it is. “I go by Dipper.”

“Oh. Dipper, then.”

The words drop into an awkward silence, because what kind of conversation can you really hold with someone who tried to jump in front of a train a few minutes ago? What can Dipper expect anyone to say to him after that? ‘How’s the weather, why are you suicidal?’

He scuffs the side of his sneaker on the concrete, keeping his eyes lowered. For the first time, he really starts to feel the cold, and his t-shirt is too thin to be any help. “You can leave now, you know. It’s like, 9 at night. I’m sure you have better things to do.”

Judging by his stance, Bill isn’t going anywhere. He crosses his arms and rests his weight on one leg, studying Dipper with those striking eyes. “Just because I stopped you once doesn’t mean you wouldn’t try again,” he says bluntly. “I’m taking you home – yours or mine, wherever I know you’ll be safe.”

“Why does it matter to you?” Dipper wants to sound angry, but he doesn’t have the energy. He presses the heels of his palms to his eyes and holds, wishing him and the world could just be gone and he’d never have to look at it again. “Why does my life even matter?”

“It matters to me because I was able to save you this time, so who’s to say I can’t do it again? I think the real thing you’re trying to ask is why it should matter to you, and that’s not something I can answer for you.”

Dipper lets his hands drop to his sides and turns away, heading for the stairs to get out of this miserable place and all the reminders of his failure, and especially Bill. He didn’t _ask_ to be saved. All of this would have been over, it would all be so easy, he was seconds away from freedom and this guy had to try to be a Good Samaritan and rip his plans out from under him. The suicide notes he left don’t mean anything anymore. Maybe nobody would’ve cared in the first place.

Someone catches him by the calf, and he jumps, backing away from the knotted, arthritic hand. It’s the homeless man he gave his coat to. When was that? Ten minutes ago? Feels like ten years.  

“Please, wait. I’ve got something for you.” The old man reaches into the pockets of his tattered pants and pulls out a handful of knickknacks. He gives them to Dipper and goes back to huddling beneath the coat, his watery blue eyes fixed on the subway tracks.

Under the flickering fluorescent lights of the station, Dipper picks through the items cupped in his palm. There’s a key, an orange marble, a dirty penny, and a broken wristwatch. It looks like a bunch of junk, but Dipper pockets it anyways. He’s not sure what to do, so he nods to the old man and continues on his way. Bill walks on the other side of the stairs, staying close without being invasive.

Dipper’s somewhat glad for the company; otherwise it would feel like the world was dead around him and he’d survived by some misfortune. It’s a ridiculous thought, and he can’t figure out to express thanks for another person to survive with, so he doesn’t.

At some point between the streetlights and scarce night traffic, Bill ends up leading the way, and Dipper keeps behind him just enough to watch him without seeming overt. He’s still too shaken up to completely register why he’s following the guy he just met who kept him from the end he’d so carefully anticipated, and too tired to bear a grudge. Right now his brain is working on the most unimportant details it can find, like how he can’t really tell the exact color of Bill’s hair because he hasn’t seen him in good lighting. By the moon, it looks close to platinum.

He’s wearing a black leather jacket over a yellow hoodie, and black skinny jeans. His style doesn’t fit into any social clique Dipper can think of, not hipster and not punk and not frat, but that’s only to be expected, because he doesn’t act like he belongs in any either. Bill is too different from anyone Dipper’s ever met. Too hard to figure out right now, just like everything else that’s happened since he tried to die.

Really, he just wants to break down in a hot shower and cry himself out until he can remember how to feel again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update schedule tentatively set for Sundays. Thank you guys for all the positive feedback, it really helps me stay on top of writing this thing.


	3. Chapter 3

Bill’s apartment isn’t exceptionally messy, like Dipper’s, but it isn’t tidy. Books are stacked high on the coffee table, alongside a laptop and some empty mugs, only their edges clearly visible because of the light coming from the kitchen. There are no clothes strewn across the floor, or any dirty plates in sight. Still, the lack of organization lends it the careless teenager feel. Dipper has no room to talk, since his considerably tinier apartment is a pigsty compared to this.

He hangs back near the door, trying to figure out whether or not he should take his shoes off here. Fixating on proper protocol is the only thing keeping him from losing his mind right now. He sits down on the floor and starts to tug off the worn sneakers.

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

Dipper’s already gotten down to his socks. He barely even registers what Bill said. It’s like being underwater and listening to people talk above the surface, like when your ears are clogged and everything else is distant. He heads for the living room, ready to crash just about anywhere and sleep for an eternity, forget that it’s a stranger’s apartment. A hand catches the back of his shirt, much more lightly than it did at the subway station.

“Don’t even think about sleeping on the couch tonight, Dipper. I only have one bedroom, but the bed’s big enough for two. Probably two and a half, if we cuddled.” Bill flashes a grin, but the humor seems to go right over Dipper’s head.

“Okay,” he says, numbly. Normally he’d protest to sleeping with another guy, especially someone he doesn’t even know, but really that’s the least of his worries for now. He’s just tired, and he’s still stuck here. Not dead.

Of course, Bill has to try to be a good host and offer him a set of pajamas. They’re a little short on Dipper, since he’s a bit bigger than Bill, but they’re comfortable enough, and he barely cares that they’re SpongeBob themed. He’s out like a light the moment his head hits the pillow.

The morning brings no change. Still living. Everything still looks bleak and colorless, as if depression has left a permanent stamp on him and his surroundings. Dipper closes his eyes, because at least seeing black is a slight change in scenery, and he thinks back to how close he came to ending it last night. He expects it to fill him with determination to follow through next time, but instead there’s only dread in his stomach when he remembers the dark subway tunnel blurred by the approaching train’s lights, and relief that someone stopped him.

He cracks his eyes open again to look at the other person sharing the bed. It takes a moment to recall the guy’s name, but not to recall what he did.

Dipper thought Bill would be relaxed, but the tensed forehead lines and furrowed brows prove otherwise. Most people look younger in sleep, but, if anything, he seems to have aged. Sunlight peeking through the blinds and falling across him is the only thing that maintains a peaceful atmosphere. His messy hair is the lightest shade of blond imaginable, incongruous with his trimmed dark eyebrows, and something just isn’t right on his face when his intense eyes aren’t visible.

Dipper doesn’t think he’ll ever understand the look he saw in those eyes after Bill stopped him. Maybe it would be better not to.

All at once, Bill shakes off the extra years sleep lent him, rolling onto his back and stretching his arms above his head. His mouth goes wide in a yawn. “M’rning, Dipper.”

“Morning,” Dipper says, more like he’s confirming a fact than offering a greeting.

“You’re probably wanting a shower, huh? No offense, I didn’t mean that like you smell so bad I thought you needed one.” Bill’s grin is blinding. He sits up and cracks his neck, then looks back at Dipper. “Come on. I didn’t bring you here to let you stay in my bed all day.”

Dipper makes a halfhearted attempt to comply, rolling over until his face is buried in the suffocating softness of the pillow. Getting out of bed has been a battle every morning for – how long? A year? Finally forced by the need to breathe, he raises his head and rolls one more time, right over the edge of the bed. His feet catch him on the carpet and, once he’s corrected his balance, he follows Bill.

In the bathroom, he’s given a clean towel and instructions on how to work the shower, and a smile as Bill closes the door behind him. Dipper didn’t miss that Bill took the razor with him. He can’t say he blames him; Bill definitely saw the scars, old and new, lining Dipper’s arms. It’s been a long time since he was self-conscious about them, so wearing that short-sleeved shirt to bed wasn’t too big a deal.

The only skin he’s never dared to touch is around the infinity mark (he’s pretty sure it is just a mark, not a timer like it should be), the natural tattoo of black loops that make it so impossible for him to find his soulmate.

Stripped down, he steps beneath the hot water, standing still until it soaks through to the roots of his hair, which has been getting a little long for his liking but he figured that wouldn’t really matter if he were dead. But since that obviously didn’t go as planned, what now? Get it cut? Go back to his job, his classes? Take the train from that station knowing what he tried there?

It’s funny how now, when he's able to cry in peace, wants to, he can’t find the tears. He’s pathetic.

He doesn’t have the strength for this, for any of this. Dipper lowers himself to sit on the floor of the tub, keeping his head down so water won’t splash in his eyes, letting it run from the flattened ends of his curls to patter on his thighs. He’s so warm, and still so tired, and he feels like it would be easy to fill up this tub and drown comfortably.

But what right does he have to do that to Bill? Not here, not in the home of somebody who’s trying so hard to save what’s already been lost. Dipper isn’t asking for his help, it won’t do any good, but there’s something. Amber eyes and the supposed clock they can see, the refusal to let him off easy, the peculiarly safe feeling of sleeping next to someone, the depth of selfless heroism. Something.

Dipper stays in there for a long time, and the water never runs cold.


	4. Chapter 4

Breakfast is waiting for Dipper when he gets out of the shower. He leaves the bathroom with the air full of steam and the mirror fogged up, one spot wiped out where he tried to clear a space to see his reflection. He’s dressed in the same clothes he wore yesterday, even though he can still smell the subway tunnel on them. A towel is draped around his neck to prevent his too-long hair from dripping water on his shirt.

The aroma is mouth-watering, which is saying something because he doesn’t get hungry often these days. He follows his nose to the kitchen, where Bill is in a yellow apron with his back to him, tossing pancakes onto a plate and singing along to something on his phone. He only really sings some parts, and drops into hums for others, as if he doesn’t really know the song but has passion for it nonetheless.

“If heaven and hell decide, that they both are satisfied, mm-h-hm-hm…” He turns around with two plates full of scrambled eggs, toast, and bacon. To his credit, he doesn’t seem surprised by Dipper’s presence, or embarrassed by his kitchen solo. He just shows him a grin and picks up the singing again as he takes the plates to the living room. “If there’s no one beside you, when your soul embarks… Come on, man, SpongeBob is on, we can eat while we watch.”

The food is delicious, better than anything Dipper’s had to eat in a long time, and it reminds him of how he and Mabel used to cook breakfast together, meaning Mabel actually cooked breakfast and he hovered over her shoulder waiting to lick the spoons or the batter bowl. Not for the first time, he wonders why she hasn’t been in touch for months, why her number is out of service. If, God forbid, she were dead, he’s sure he would’ve felt it.

No matter how good Bill’s cooking is, it can’t miraculously fix Dipper’s virtually nonexistent appetite.  He only manages to finish the eggs, and pick at the toast. The mindless cartoon on the TV is just a notch too loud to make conversation a viable option, so Dipper sets his plate down and pulls his knees up, trying to get more comfortable on the couch. His eyelids are heavy, but for once he actually doesn’t want to sleep. There’s the old urge to dig into a mystery, tugging him towards Bill.

The thing is, there are so many questions he doesn’t know where to start. He isn’t prepared to ask the important ones, like can Bill really see his timer and if so _how_? But he also doesn’t know where to begin a conversation that won’t end in the inevitable “why did you try to jump in front of a train?”

When Bill collects the plates, Dipper makes himself get up and trail after him, stopping awkwardly in the kitchen doorway.

“Thanks,” he says after a pause, speaking up over the running water in the sink. Self-consciously, he realizes he hasn’t really said more than a few words to Bill since meeting him. “For breakfast. And for, for not letting me die.”

“I’m trying.”

The use of present tense stops Dipper in his tracks. He looks down at his feet and pushes up the towel around his neck, scrubbing at the damp half-curled ends of hair at the back of his neck as an excuse to be busy. “What day is it?”

“The date is the 24th, it’s a Monday," Bill answers almost preemptively, like he guessed the second question.

Monday, which means Dipper has a class at noon. It’s only 10:38, so he could make it, but he’s not sure he has the energy to. He’s not sure Bill will let him in the first place.

He clears his throat quietly. “So, is the whole saving people thing a job or a hobby?”

Bill laughs aloud and tosses a dishtowel at Dipper. “Help me dry? Thanks. And no, my extrasensory skills unfortunately do not pay the bills. Ha, _bills_.” He lifts his soapy hands from the sink to make finger pistols. “Get it, because my name –”

Dipper puts a hand, scrunching the towel, on his face deploringly, but beneath it he’s almost smiling. “Yeah, I get it.”

They make an efficient assembly line of sorts, and in a space of silence they manage to perfect the handoff of plates and silverware to be cleaned. It’s easier to function when you have a chain of command.

“It isn’t a hobby either,” Bill says, once the last plate has been taken care of. He takes the towel to dry his hands, and leans back against the kitchen counter. “I don’t go around looking for people whose timers are running down, or people who still have a lot of time. Yesterday was just chance – maybe fate. I’m glad I could save someone, but I never have before. Besides, it’s not like you’re really _saved_ , I don’t think. Not if there’s nothing to stop you from doing it again, no matter how much time you have left. That’s the flaw in the countdown system.”

“I’m glad you ran into me when you did, then.” Dipper can’t tell if it’s a lie or not, but some part of him is starting to be a little more convinced that being here today is better than being a stain on those subway tracks. He rubs at his eyes and looks around for something to focus on while he talks, because talking is hard. “And I appreciate the hospitality, but I don’t want to take up space here forever. I can get out of your hair today, I have a class later.”

Bill pins him with his gaze, for once unsmiling, and Dipper can only meet it for a few seconds before he diverts his eyes back to the dish rack. After a moment, Bill’s face relaxes back into gentle reassurance, and he says, “You know you’re not ‘taking up space,’ right? I’d really be more comfortable if you stayed a little longer, just so I can…”

“So you can keep an eye on me? Make sure I don’t kill myself?” Dipper asks bluntly. Bill almost flinches.

“Your life is your own. I trust that you’ll find something better to do with it than try to cut it short.” He’s looking at a point somewhere above Dipper’s head, his amber eyes sharp with that same look from last night. “I’m not going to force you to stay here longer than you want to. I want to give you my contact info, though, just so you know you have somewhere to go if you need.”

Dipper exhales slowly. “Right. I’m – sorry. That I snapped at you. I know you’re trying to help, like you think you can ‘cure’ me or something –”

Bill doesn’t look up from the sticky note he’s writing on, but he shakes his head. “I know there isn’t an instant cure, Dipper. You’re not the only person here who's been there before."

He walks up to Dipper, close enough in his space to make the slight height gap between them more apparent, and takes his hand, pressing the note into it and holding on for just a beat too long. “I’m not going to ask you why,” he says quietly, “and I’m not going to make you stay. I’ll be here, though.”

Dipper can’t bring himself to say thank you, much less ask about the depression part. He also can’t help but notice the little twinge of guilt and protest in his gut, the thought that maybe it would be nice to have a friend after being isolated for so long. But there’s class in an hour, and there’s being alive, whether he has a life or not, and he’s grown used to that routine enough that anything more would be asking for too much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Valentine's update! I wish I had a more romantic chapter to give you, but all in good time.
> 
> EDIT 2/28: I'm so sorry guys, this is like the second Sunday I've missed in a row. I kinda haven't been great lately, school is overwhelming, family stuff, a bunch of other excuses blah blah blah. Either way I need a little bit of a hiatus to pull myself back together and get ahead on writing (I'm working on about ten fics at once, send help) and also life in general. Tentatively aiming to update again mid-March, but, failing that, I promise a new chapter by the end of the month.


	5. Chapter 5

The next week isn’t easy. Dipper can’t say he expected it to be. It takes a while to actually get himself interested in the idea of life again, but there’s no other choice because the urge to die isn’t there either. He finds some inspiration in the writing class he’s taking, but mostly everything about college is dull and lonely, and when he goes home his eyes can’t seem to focus on his notes or essays or assignments. He thinks back to high school, when he had a 4.0 GPA and flawless grades, and tries to pinpoint when exactly he lost all academic motivation.

Being an adult is so much different than he dreamed it would be. As a twelve-year-old roaming through an Oregon forest with his sister at his side, imagining monsters around them to fight, he’d talked about all his plans, how he wanted to grow up fast and have his own ghost-hunting show, and maybe write a book on the side. Now Dipper just wishes he could be that kid again. He never would have set any expectations for himself if he knew it would turn out like this.

He looks at the sticky note, still where he left it on the wall. He almost wants to dial the number, but calling Bill would just make him seem like a whiny nuisance. Not that he isn’t, but if he can maintain any illusion of self-respect with Bill, then he’d like to. He doesn’t want Bill to see him like this, to see the state he’s living in, at least not until he makes some progress in putting himself back together, but if he waits for that to happen, the odds are Bill won’t ever see him again. It doesn’t matter. Bill’s still almost a stranger, whether he saved his life or not. Bill doesn’t need to help him.

With a sigh, Dipper pulls a blanket up over his shoulders, shifting to get comfortable on the saggy mattress. It’s one of those that folds up against the wall, the only kind that will accommodate the lack of space in his two-room apartment, which has the bare essentials for modern life and nothing more. A tiny bathroom that doubles as an even tinier kitchen sometimes, and a bedroom that serves every other purpose. It’s not really enough space, but it’s all he can afford, and speaking of which he has to pay the rent in a few days, so he really should get up to go to work because if he doesn’t scramble to get ready and leave this instant he’ll be late for his shift.

But he doesn’t want to do anything but lay here. He wants to sleep for an eternity, but he can’t. Get out of bed, go to work, go to school, rinse, repeat.

Dipper forces himself to get up, throw on a jacket, cram his feet into his shoes, and leave the apartment. When you simplify things into steps, it doesn’t really become much easier, it just makes it seem like you’re getting somewhere. He bikes to the gas station, puts on the tag that reads ‘Hello, My Name Is DIPPER,’ rings up lottery card totals, scans packs of cigarettes and chips, bags them, ignores the stench of cigars and the unpleasantness of most of the customers, buys himself a discount soda to keep him awake. Productivity, isn’t that what it’s called?

For today, he survives. Tomorrow, who knows.

Tomorrow, as it turns out, is the third time he’s late to work this month. The manager, a short and squat old man whose face was constantly red and sweaty, calls him back to his office and roars a lecture at him about the irresponsibility of youth. He writes Dipper a final check, says he’ll never amount to anything if he’s useless even as a gas station clerk, and tells him to get the fuck out.

If Dipper weren’t so numb by then, he might have started crying as soon as he got outside, but he doesn’t. It’s the night shift he was late for this time; it’s cold out, and he forgot his jacket in the station and isn’t about to go get it, and the air smells like gasoline and cigarette smoke and filth, and really nothing has changed since he’s been here and maybe the manager is right about him.

He doesn’t turn on the lights when he gets back to his apartment – that’s a commodity that might not be so available in the future, after all. Dipper kicks his shoes off and twists himself up in the sheet of his bed, running through his options. He should have enough for one last rent payment, but after that, it’s all uncertain.

Some nights, there’s only really one choice. Slowly, he drags himself to sit up fully, leaning back against the wall. There’s one good knife in there, probably the only clean utensil in the apartment. He can’t bring himself to get up, his mind turning over the looks Bill had given him a week ago. Was it a week?

Dipper’s conscious of the paradigm shift that’s happening the longer he stares at that washed-out-orange sticky note, from using pain as a solution, to using a single desperate _help me_. Will something like that even work?

He gets a text back within two minutes. It’s 2 in the morning and he can’t think of a single good reason for Bill to be available so late. He isn’t even sure he remembers sending the message in the first place, but it’s there beneath the sweat from the pad of his finger on the small screen of his shitty slider phone, right above the answer.

_Dipper, can you give me your address? Hold on, please, I’ll be there soon._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while, huh guys? I'm sorry to have kept you waiting for so long, and if you've lost interest by now I can't say I blame you. For those of you who are still with me, thank you. 
> 
> A little update on me: I've gotten my life together a little more and I'm doing a lot better than I was last time, so that's good. I'm on break, so ideally I'll have some time to keep writing this and get ahead so we can resume the old update schedule. Look for another chapter in a week, but, failing that, I'll have something for the week after. Currently writing a lot of things at once, namely a revamp of my other fic, All the Secrets of the Universe, and also another special thing that I can't talk about yet. Shameless self-promotion or what?
> 
> Anyhow, as always, feedback is appreciated, and thank you for reading.


	6. Chapter 6

Falling asleep in Bill’s bed again feels, weirdly, like coming home.

The trip here was a haze of quiet words in the car and passing street lamps, and Bill made him Sleepytime tea and let him talk for an hour. Dipper can’t even remember what was said, but he must have ended up crying because his eyes are puffy and dry and he’s bone tired, and he starts to drift off easily. But he does vaguely remember a kiss on the forehead, right on the weird birthmark he’s always been so embarrassed about, and it’s so platonic and pure that he almost thinks it’s his mother, or even Mabel.

He wakes up slightly disoriented and still tired, too tired to even register what feels off about the situation. He just snuggles closer to the other source of body heat in the bed, pressing his face into the t-shirt that smells like something from his childhood, maybe the blankets he and his twin always wanted freshly warmed in the dryer before they went to bed. Yes, that was it. Clean and comfort.

He’s on the verge of dozing off again when he realizes whose shirt it must be. Dipper squints on eye open and, sure enough, there’s Bill, looking like he’s been awake for a while. With horror, he lifts his cheek from the damp spot near the shirt collar. Was that drool or tears? And either way, Bill will probably be grossed out and hate him, and then what?

In that moment, Dipper’s chest closes up so hard he fears it might stop his heart, and suddenly he’s acutely aware of sweat gluing his shirt to his back, and little tremors running throughout his body. Flushed to the point of being nearly feverish, he hides his face in Bill’s shirt again, holding onto fistfuls of it with his hands and fighting the urge to run away. He knows what this is, but that doesn’t make it any less terrifying.

A hand rubs through his hair soothingly. “Breathe.”

Clinging to that one word like a life preserver, Dipper tries to suck in air, managing one deep breath before he dissolves into panicked, rapid gasps once more.

“Breathe,” Bill tells him again, a little more firmly this time. “Please, try to breathe.”

So Dipper does, until he can. The anxiety attack ends after about four minutes. Everything’s quiet, until Dipper shuffles under the sheets and rolls onto his other side, too ashamed to look at Bill.

“Sorry,” he whispers hoarsely.

“Don’t be sorry.”

“But, last night –”

“No, you don’t have to apologize for that.”

“And…just now?”

“That either.” Bill reaches out to touch Dipper’s shoulder. “You hungry?”

He isn’t, really, and he still feels a little bit nauseous, but he nods anyways, keeping his shoulder turned away. Today, Bill lets him stay in bed for a while longer. Dipper can’t go back to sleep, so he just closes his eyes and buries his face in his pillow, taking advantage of the time alone to loathe himself a little bit. He thinks back to what the manager said to him at the gas station, to what he almost did last night, to what he almost did a week ago. And if he’d done that, none of this would have happened. He wouldn’t be such a nuisance to Bill.

Dipper knows the self-pity isn’t going to help anything, but that won’t stop it from happening. Once you get stuck in that pattern of thinking, it’s hard to break it. He doesn’t want to be here, but he doesn’t want to go through the action of dying. He doesn’t want to refuse Bill’s help, but he doesn’t know how to accept it.

So he rolls over in bed again, this time towards Bill’s side, where the sheets are still warm and the pillow carries lingering olfactory traces of vanilla-scented shampoo, and he breathes.


	7. Chapter 7

Sitting on one end of the couch with his knees pulled up and half-eaten plate of breakfast on the coffee table, Dipper muses that this is a lot like last time, only now he’s not sure he’s doing better or worse than the day of the aftermath of trying to jump in front of a train. Bill is watching SpongeBob while he eats, but this time he mercifully left the TV at a low volume, and he doesn’t seem to be paying the cartoon much attention anyways.

“So…” Dipper takes a deep breath, looking down at his hands and picking at his cuticles. “What happens now?”

“Now that you’ll stay.” It’s a question, but Bill doesn’t ask it like one. “And you won’t try to go it alone again. Yes?”

“If it’s not too much of a burden for you, then…then maybe for a little while.”

“Good. You told me your lease isn’t up for another four months, and your next payment is today, so we need to take care of that.”

“We? Hold up, you’re not going to pay my rent,” Dipper insists. “Not this time. I have enough to do that myself. You’re already doing too much for me.”

Bill looks like he wants to argue, but Dipper gives him a look, and he relents. “Fine. But only if you agree to let me take care of everything else, food and essentials and all that. This is my apartment, so I don’t want you to feel like you have to try to pitch in for anything.”

It takes a lot of effort, but Dipper swallows his pride and nods, only because he’s not sure he’d be able to uphold his end of the deal if he promised anything more than this. He wants to offer to handle some chores, at least, and make it clear he can be useful. Given how little he’s taken care of himself and his belongings while living on his own, he can’t say he’d be much better at helping out in Bill’s apartment, though.

Speaking of belongings, he’ll have to pick up all his stuff from his place, or at least anything that had any value to him. Clothes, if nothing else. He fell asleep in jeans and a t-shirt last night and didn’t bring a change of either, so at least he doesn’t have to expend energy getting dressed.

“Shall we go get it over with, then?” Bill suggests.

Dipper nods, even though he doesn’t feel like leaving the couch, or leaving Bill’s apartment for that matter. It’s warm, and, although he can’t shake the feeling that he shouldn’t be accepting this kind of generosity, he’s becoming comfortable here.

The two of them leave the dishes in the sink and put their shoes on. Bill is still in his pajamas, and Dipper almost wants to point it out. It occurs to him that Bill probably knows, which doesn’t make it make any more sense. But hey, when someone puts up with you and your depression for no apparent reason, you might not believe there’s much logic in anything they do. Some people are truly kind and selfless like that, and others are good at pretending to be. It’s too hard to decipher motives in Bill's endlessly considerate gestures.

Dipper decides Bill is an enigma he doesn’t have the ability to figure out right now, but there’s the tiniest itch still urging him to try. It’s a ghost of the passion he used to have for storytelling and mystery. He wants it back, he wants to remember the solid reassurance of a pen in his hand and an intriguing character on his page.

Maybe when they get back, he’ll even try to write a little. Maybe this is what they call inspiration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much for sticking to regular updates, huh? Sorry guys. I'm still all over the place. Maybe someday I'll get it together, but today is not that day. If you have the patience to keep up with the scattered updates, I applaud you.


	8. Chapter 8

There wasn’t much to bring back from Dipper’s apartment besides his clothes, just like he thought. Now that he’s paid his rent, he has exactly 27 cents left in his pocket. Oh, 28, counting that penny the old homeless man gave him. This must be the same pair of jeans he wore to the subway tunnel, and they probably haven't been washed but he doesn't really care. He looks through the assortment of junk he pulled out, and then stuffs it back into the pocket. He doesn't want to think about that night more than he has to.

There is one valuable item he brought to Bill’s place. Dipper’s busted up Dell laptop isn’t much, but he’s grateful to have it, and at least it works (kinda). It’s where he does most of his assignments for the few college classes he’s still enrolled in – or, where he _did_ them, when he was actually still trying to give a shit about school. Maybe that’s something he should attempt again.

For right now, though, he’s just concerned with digging up the old files that catalog notes he made about old story ideas. Bill gave him the Wi-Fi password and everything, but he hasn’t used it yet, distracted by the nostalgia of some things he started writing years ago. He’s hammering out some fresh ideas in a new document, cursing the jammed keys under his breath, when Bill rejoins him in the living room.

Dipper is completely absorbed in the writing for a solid ten minutes, long enough for Bill to get up, make two cups of tea, and sit back down again. Finally, Dipper trades the laptop for his worn old notebook and a pen, and he looks at Bill just long enough to notice that something’s different. He’s staring now, for sure, and maybe it’s rude but he can’t look away, too confused by the presence of the patch over Bill’s right eye.

It’s white, made from cloth, almost like a bandage, with straps crisscrossing to secure it on his face, and it gives more of an anime vibe, so at least he doesn’t look like a pirate. That doesn’t make it any less ridiculous. Dipper can’t think of a single explanation – he’s seen Bill’s eyes, and they both seemed perfectly fine and functional. He’s not sure how to even ask properly.

“You didn’t just poke yourself in the eye, did you?”

Bill laughs. “No, this is so I don’t have to see your –” He shuts up abruptly, as if he’s said too much.

Dipper’s eyebrows furrow. He didn’t think it was possible to make him more perplexed by this situation, but Bill has proved him wrong. “See my what?”

Bill laughs again, nervously this time, suddenly very focused on his tea. After a few quiet sips, he says, “You remember back in the subway tunnel? Ah, of course you do, sorry, that was a dumb question. I don’t know if you even heard me, you were so out of it, but I said...I told you that I could see your timer, yeah?”

_Why?_

_Because I can see your timer. And today is definitely not the day you die._

Dipper’s eyes widen. He can’t believe something like that was pushed to the back of his mind, even with all that had happened since then. You don’t just _forget_ about someone being able to see the date of your death – whether you believe in the timers or not, that’s just too big a bombshell.

His head is spinning with a thousand new questions. The one that makes it out of his mouth is “ _How?_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For once, I actually could have had this chapter out on time, believe it or not. I'm a little ahead on the writing. I was just dumb and forgot to post it when I said I would. To make up for it, I'll update again on Sunday.


	9. Chapter 9

Before Bill can begin to explain, Dipper is already spouting more incredulous queries.

“Have you ever told anybody about this? Would anyone believe it? How would you prove it? How is it related to your right eye? Is that the only one that can see the timers? What are they like? You called me by my real name when we first met, so are those the names listed on the timer? Does it give just a day or an exact time of death? Does it tell you how I’ll die? When will I die? Do you – is that why you wear the eyepatch? So you don’t have to see –”

“Please just stop!”

Dipper bites down on his tongue to keep another question from slipping out. He realizes that last one might have been a little insensitive. The revelation is still circulating in his brain, but he refuses to let it come before his basic decency.

Bill’s hands are shaking on his mug of tea. He sets it back on the coffee table without taking a drink.

“No, I haven’t told anybody, and that’s exactly why. The media would be all over me with questions like that, and it would never stop. They’d – they’d want to use me, for science or something.”

“You’re right, but…even so, it does sound like an amazing power.” Dipper struggles to contain his excitement. He doesn’t entirely understand why Bill doesn’t seem as eager to talk about this.

“It isn’t,” Bill replies sharply. Bitterness has crept into his voice. “You don’t see it, do you? If anybody knew, they’d blame me for not being able to stop people from dying before their time. That happens too often, because the countdown is a flawed system and it only gives the ideal lifespan from time of birth, it doesn’t account for all accidents or suicides, and sometimes I’m able to do something about it, like with you, but most of the time I fail. My father was supposed to live until five years from now. He died ten years ago.”

Dipper opens his mouth, and closes it again smartly. Bill is right about all of it, and he can’t really argue. But he doesn’t want to let it go, because there’s more to it than that, he knows there is.

“Try to imagine being able to know when everybody around you is going to die. In crowds, at school, even with your own family, and you can’t turn it on or off like a light, it’s not an optional ability, it’s just there, and it’s been there since you were born, and you’ve understood the numbers counting down above your mother’s head since you were old enough to read. Try to imagine living with that, Dipper.”

Bill takes Dipper’s tea, untouched and now cold, and his own half-empty mug to the sink. The only sound in the apartment is the trickle of liquid down the drain. There’s a heavy realization in Dipper’s stomach. He was so caught up in everything about the timers that he didn’t even think about how Bill must feel. He tries to imagine living for all this time knowing when his twin would die. What if she wasn’t going to live as long as he was? How would he go on knowing that?

It hurts just to think about it, stabs through his gut, because he’s sure it would feel like betrayal.

“Bill, I’m sorry,” he says in a small voice. He’s not sure Bill can even hear him from the kitchen, until he receives an answer.

“It’s fine.”

Dipper blinks back the hot tears that spring unbidden to his eyes. He can’t stop thinking about what Bill has gone through for his whole life, he can’t stop thinking about how long Mabel will live, how long he’ll live. Inevitably, it’ll be one of them before the other. Dipper doesn’t want to know which.

If Bill ever met her, whether _he_ wanted to know or not wouldn’t make a difference.

Dipper forces himself to get it together. Sometimes you have to stabilize yourself first if you want to help anybody. He’s not going to start crying and make Bill feel guilty; this is his own fault.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, this time on his way to the kitchen, “I mean it, I’m really – Bill, that was stupid of me, you can tell me so, you can be mad at me, I deserve it. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”

Bill is standing with his hands braced on either side of the sink, looking down into it. All he says is “We forgot to do the dishes,” and he turns on the faucet.

It’s a lot more uncomfortable than the first time Dipper helped him with the dishes, and that was shortly after Dipper tried to jump in front of a train. They don’t talk. Bill hands him plates, Dipper dries them, and they’re done in two minutes. So much for stalling the conversation. Dipper bows his head, studies the holes in his socks, waits for judgment, waits for Bill to yell at him or kick him out or _something_. The silence is worse than anything Bill could possibly say.

And in the end, he just says, “I told you, it’s fine.”

Before Dipper can try to argue again, Bill has slipped past him, right between his fingers like water. He stands in the kitchen aimlessly and stares at Bill’s turned back heading away from him, towards the sliding glass door that leads out onto the apartment’s balcony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kept a promise! It's a miracle!


	10. Chapter 10

Dipper doesn’t know how long he should leave Bill alone, but he ends up going to him on the balcony sooner than planned because he can’t stand waiting, wondering if he’s truly fucked it up this time.

When Bill hears the door slide shut behind Dipper, he says, without looking behind him, “I’m sorry.”

“ _You_ are? For what?”

“I don’t know,” Bill admits.

Dipper is genuinely bewildered. Hesitantly, he moves to stand beside Bill at the railing, only to get a mouthful of secondhand smoke that makes him start coughing. Bill quickly shifts to the other side of him, downwind, and he keeps his head turned away carefully. Dipper didn’t know he smoked, but then again there had been the faintest whiff of it on Bill’s pillow, mixed with the vanilla shampoo, but not overwhelming. Now really isn’t the right time to be thinking about how Bill smells.

“I’m sorry about this, for one thing.” Bill waves his cigarette, sending lazy curls of smoke into the mid-evening sky.

“Don’t be, it’s your apartment. I don’t mind. If anything, I should be sorry, for –”

“I know it’s not good for me,” Bill goes on. Whether he intended to cut Dipper off, whether he even heard a word Dipper said, is questionable. “It’s a better outlet than the others I’ve tried, though.”

Dipper is content to let him talk, but Bill falls quiet again. He takes one last drag, crushes the remaining half of the cigarette on the top of the rail, and drops it to the balcony. There are a few other cigarettes that met similar fates, scattered around his feet, but surprisingly not many.

“Thanks for the apology,” Bill says after a while. “I know you didn’t understand. I can’t blame you for that.”

“I –”

“Arguing won’t do any good right now. Maybe it was justified, but I am sorry I lashed out at you like that. I needed space for a minute.” Bill crosses his arms on top of the railing and rests his chin on top of them. There’s a breeze that’s just cold enough that it doesn’t feel pleasant, and just windy enough to riffle through feathery tufts of blond hair, promising the daily rain showers typical of Portland in the winter. “Being out here is nice, calming. I like the smell of rain. And I like watching people sometimes.”

It’s then that Dipper realizes Bill isn’t wearing the eyepatch anymore. Both of his eyes are fixed on the slow-moving city traffic down below, the pedestrians crossing the road, the ordinary people walking up and down the sidewalks. His eyebrows knit together, and he shakes his head, closing his eyes.

“This isn’t one of those times. I don’t know why I thought that would help. I can read the numbers all the way from up here. I see all those happy couples walking together, the little kids, the babies in strollers, and I wonder if any of them will make it to that day they’re supposed to die, or if something will happen before then. I could tell them all when their lifespans are set to reach the end, but would it really mean anything if an accident happened before then? It feels like my life is an exercise in futility. I just watch them pass by and I let it go because I’m not able to do a thing about it.”

Bill looks over at Dipper, his amber eyes as piercing as the night Dipper first saw them. This time, he’s not too sick or scared to meet them. He wonders what they see above his head – Abel Pines, how many years he has left, how many hours, how many seconds? You have to be at least a little curious about when you’re going to die, or maybe that’s just his own morbidity.

“If you just let it go that night, I wouldn’t still be here, would I? And I don’t know how I feel about that still, really, whether it’s good or bad, but I am here. So far I’m not regretting it. You might have wasted that saving chance on the wrong person, but you did do something about it.”

“You’re the only person this power has ever helped,” Bill says with a kind of smile that made Dipper’s heart twist with – pity? “But I don’t think you were the wrong one. And you still have a whole lot of time left on that timer. You can’t die until it reaches zero, okay?”

“I’ll try not to,” Dipper says. It sounds more like a promise than he means for it to.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to catch up with Mabel.

_Several months previously_

Las Vegas isn’t anything like it is in the movies, and everyone who told Mabel otherwise lied to her. From a distance it seems like it, maybe, with its skyline at sunset, and neon lights turning on, but the closer you get to it, the more you smell the corruption. See, for all its light shows and strippers and poker tables, the ambiance of Las Vegas separates it from places like Portland or San Francisco or even Reno. It’s like Los Angeles in the middle of a desert, ridden with crime and shady business. Disneyland for adults. It could be an okay place to vacation – always was for her Grunkle – but to live there? She couldn’t imagine it, until she did.

The air is what hits her first when she steps off the bus. She wrinkles her nose against the rancid taste of pollution, and shields her eyes against the dazzling brightness of the Strip. It isn’t safe to linger on the sidewalk there, and there isn’t any time anyways; the crowd of people moving down the street sweeps her up and made her one of them before she even realizes it.

Here’s the kicker; prostitution isn’t actually legal in Vegas. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, but choosing to start her career in the city isn’t a wise idea. The money is quick, and easy, but Mabel doesn’t have anybody to look out for her. When you have nobody in the world you can turn to, you’re vulnerable. Sometimes the men will take her even when she is unwilling, or they won’t pay the agreed amount, and there’s nothing she can do about it.

She ends up crying on the floor of her shower, more often than not, feeling filthy no matter how many times she scrubs and washes and scrubs and washes again.

If there’s one thing Mabel’s new profession has taught her, it’s that the concept of choice is fake. She didn’t come here by choice – not really. Sure, nobody forced her to get on that bus and leave California, but a lack of finances, an unreliable job, and the shitty state of the economy forced her to drop out of college before she’d even really begun. CalArts doesn’t charge lightly.

Neither does working in the sex industry. There’s no technical fee to pay, just the physical toll, the dullness of sex that isn’t actively wanted by both parties, the ache between her thighs after a rough day. The emotional pain that comes every time she asks a man to stop, says (screams) no, and is ignored. It might have been her choice to become a prostitute, but even then it was a pressured choice, and now there’s no choice at all. Whether Mabel wants anything about this life or not, she has to bear it.

_Present time_

Mabel knows now that prostitution isn’t legal in Vegas, in Reno, in many places in Nevada, actually. But there are some counties where it is, and Mabel only learns this after suffering through the first part of her career for two months. She packs up everything she owns – not much – and leaves the classy apartment that had never really felt like a home, always full of strangers coming and taking and going, and she takes a taxi out to a rural town she heard about from another sex worker in the city.

Tentatively, she pushes open the brothel’s door. It’s not a big place – at the front desk, she learns there are only about 20 workers here, and also that there are some who would be more than willing to accommodate her tastes. Mabel shouldn’t blush at that, not after she’s become immune to blushing at all the dirty things whispered in her ear, but she does, and she hastily explains that that isn’t what she’s here for. Though maybe the lady at the front desk is right about her tastes.

She has to be tested for several different diseases, but the results are back within a week and are surprisingly clean. For all the men who refused to use a condom or didn’t pull out, it’s a small miracle that Mabel came away from her time in the city without any STDs, and that she isn’t pregnant. _Thank God,_ she thinks, without objectively deciding whether she still believes in anything like that.

Working at the brothel is vastly different from working alone. For one thing, the men are required to use a condom, and they can get in serious trouble for mistreating the prostitutes in any way. For another, she has the company of other women outside of work hours. Mabel talks to them, even makes some friends, learns their stories and sympathizes and eventually opens up about her own life, about her failed attempt at going to college.

Some of them chose this life as a way of empowerment, others chose it because it pays well, even if they didn’t need the money. And still others chose it because they were, like her, desperate. Some have children to provide for, some are trying to achieve their high school dreams, some are shunned by their own family.

Most of them don’t have any other place they feel they belong.


	12. Chapter 12

Mabel has been saving up her money, working to get back to California, or maybe to Oregon, where her brother is. She desperately hopes he’s okay, but she doesn’t know how to get in touch with him. One night, she wakes in a cold sweat from a dream about falling in front of a train, her heart beating wildly out of control, and some gut instinct tells her that was important, that it had something to do with Dipper. She can’t stand to think about it, that he might be hurt and she has no way to help him.

Still, it doesn’t feel like he’s dead. Mabel is sure she would know if he were – it’s a thing you just _sense_ when you have a twin, like the second half of yourself has gone missing from the world. The only reassurance is that she knows Dipper feels the same link between them.

Once, she was climbing a tree out in the woods where her Grunkle Stan used to live, when she and her twin visited him every summer, and she hit her head hard, passed out, and fell 25 feet to the ground. At the same time, Dipper got dizzy, and his arm started hurting badly, and later he told her how he had the worst feeling in his gut, like he just _knew_ something had happened to her. When he and Stan found her, she had a mild concussion and a broken arm. Grunkle Stan might never have guessed something was wrong until Dipper told him about it, but he understood instantly, being a twin himself.

Stan was a good man. Mabel misses him dearly. Those summers spent at his tourist trap in the woods were the best she’d ever known. She and Dipper had played in the woods for hours on end, had fashioned trash bags into capes and made swords out of sticks and pretended to fight monsters, back to back, side by side. Mabel finds herself missing Dipper more than anything. She misses seeing him get excited over nerdy things, she misses helping him through his heartbreak over Wendy, she misses watching him read and scribble in his notebooks on the other side of their bedroom.

She’s sharing a house with one of the other prostitutes, in a small town near the brothel, but no roommate will ever be the same as her twin. She closes her eyes, hoping that Dipper is still out there somewhere, maybe even thinking of her, and she tries to dream of summer.

When her roommate, Carrie, invites her out with some other girls from the brothel, Mabel almost wants to decline, but in the end she decides to go simply because _why not_? Maybe it’ll take her mind off of things for a little while. She puts on a short, tight-fitting pink dress with glitter across the front and does her makeup in the evening, and by 7:00 she’s ready to go.

Carrie lets Mabel have the front seat in the Porsche she drives, at least until they pick up the two other friends of hers. Then Mabel is relegated to the backseat, along with one of them named Madison. Carrie’s best friend, America, rides shotgun. Mabel has to try hard not to laugh, because who names their child _America_? Maybe she would have thought it was cute and creative, a long time ago, but maybe she’s become disillusioned with the name of a country that leaves girls nowhere to go but to sex work when life turns upside down on them.

She can’t really say anything to America, though. (The woman, not the country.) After all, who names their twins Abel and Mabel? The rhyming thing wasn’t as great as all parents seemed to think it was. No wonder Dipper had been calling himself _Dipper_ ever since kindergarten.

America the person seems pretty nice, actually. She and Carrie and Madison have known each other for a long time. They talk animatedly to one another during the whole car ride, and they try to include Mabel, but she doesn’t offer much. She spends more time looking out the window, watching the countryside flash by, with a churning, nauseous feeling in her stomach when she realizes the neon lights in the distance are getting closer – because that must be where they’re going. Maybe she should have asked about their destination before she agreed to come along, because now she’s tempted to open the car door and jump out.


	13. Chapter 13

Carrie and her friends lead the way into the club. Mabel trails a little ways behind, even after they remember to turn back for her and make sure she’s okay.

“I’ll catch up with you guys,” she says, struggling to be heard over the thumping music. Just in case, she gives them a thumbs up. They seem to understand, and go off to find a table, laughing and chattering.

Mabel looks around carefully. She knows it’s not always good to be alone, but this place doesn’t seem too shady, even if it is on the outskirts of Vegas. She didn’t expect to be brought back to this area; it holds nothing but bad memories, but she tries to ignore it. It’s just another club. Maybe she’ll even meet a nice guy ( _or girl_ , she thinks). It feels weird to be in a place like this without being on the job. Her body has always been part of a business transaction in clubs, and she’s used to using everything she’s got to hook customers.

But it’s not like that right now, she reminds herself. She doesn’t work solo anymore, she works at the brothel. It’s better. She can look good without fulfilling anyone’s expectations tonight.

Mabel supposes she could hook up with someone for casual sex, but she’s not sure she wants to. How long has it been since she’s done anything like that for her own pleasure? That’s kinda sad. She thinks she needs a drink.

She thinks she needs a lot of things. To get out of this place, for one. Not necessarily this club, but this place in general, all the toxicity of Vegas. It was ridiculous to think she’d never have to deal with this seedy city again, but Mabel had been trying to put it off for as long as possible. She’s come to hate Las Vegas for everything that’s happened to her, and she doesn’t care if it’s unfair to blame a whole metropolis for that.

Granted, it _is_ better now, working at the brothel, but she misses the fresh air and the rainy days farther up the coast. She misses her brother like she’d miss her own right arm.

Out of habit, she glances down at her right arm. That’s where her soulmate timer is. It’s been stuck on 0:00:00 for a long time now. She already met her soulmate, and both of them knew it when it happened. Mabel had wanted to talk to her more, to get to know her, to avoid the petty rivalry between them. Pacifica had only pushed her away.

In a way, maybe she understands. The Northwest family wouldn’t have been pleased if they knew Pacifica’s soulmate was anyone but a rich boy. Mabel is pretty sure she gave them the “must have passed down the street before I noticed” excuse, but really, how likely was that in a small town like Gravity Falls? How likely was that in general? You _know_ when you meet your soulmate. You feel it. And every time you see them after that, you keep feeling it.

Right now, she feels it, and she’s not quite sure why. Maybe wishful thinking, or just remembering the sensation, the warmth that started in her arm and spread through her entire body every time she and Pacifica crossed paths. It had been horribly distracting, and always made her blush more easily than usual when Pacifica taunted her. To this day, she doesn’t understand why Pacifica hadn’t seemed as affected. She _is_ Mabel’s soulmate, even though Mabel doesn’t know where Pacifica’s timer is located. She never saw it. But she knows, because you can’t exactly be someone’s soulmate if they’re not yours.

The feeling isn’t going away. Bewildered, Mabel rubs at her arm and looks up. _There’s no way_ , she thinks, but her gaze finds what she’s looking for before her brain even registers it.

Pacifica Northwest is standing right there, just inside the doors of the club, looking straight at Mabel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early update and a double update, just for you guys. I hope you don't mind the brief Mabifica interlude. We'll be back to BillDip within a few chapters. The only problem is, I'm going to be away for a little more than a month without internet access. I'll have plenty of time to write, but I won't really be able to post unless I go somewhere that has wifi. I can't promise anything. Until then, all of you stay safe, enjoy your summer if you're in the same hemisphere as I am. I'll see you when I get back. Wish me luck.


End file.
